Time went by and we've basically seen every social platform turn into a walled garden.
There is a reason we cannot have nice things. It's called "spam".
People were happy when an open API allowed their friends to communicate easily. People got unhappy when not-friends took advantage of the same API. "Why are you allowing this to happen?", they asked. "Stop it." "It" was "fake news" or "spam" or "hate speech" or whatever.
So now they're acting to stop it. Welcome to the walled garden.
Cruise control only takes away one task - you still have to be paying enough attention to your steering
You also need to be paying attention to your speed since cruise control is not perfect. My Subaru's cruise control will fail when I'm going downhill. I set it at 70 on the level, it will usually maintain that going up the hill, but when we're coming down the hill the speed will slowly creep up. I've seen it hit 80 or 85.
I know it is the cruise control failing because if I turn it off after reaching 80 the car starts to slow down again.
when ALL tasks are taken over, as in the case of Autopilot.
If Tesla is marketing Autopilot in such a way, then they truly are wrong.
You can't even play the "Tesla is technically correct, the best kind of correct" card and say the plebes should just get over it, as nothing "pilots" a car. It doesn't resemble the methods of airplane autopilot enough to say they are bringing over the technology either.
I didn't say either thing. I was pretty specific in what the similarity was. It does the same kind of thing and has the same specific limitation on driver/pilot attentiveness.
Inconvenient Truths, I think it was called. Just not sugar coated. I think a "bellicose tone", as you put it, is appropriate when someone suggests doing something so absolutely stupid and dangerous as "reading while piloting". Pointing that out is "trolling", to some. Maybe it's a sign that the term "autopilot" is wrong for any such device because non-pilots think "auto" means that pilots can hand control over to it and not keep it under constant supervision. Anyone who suggests otherwise must be trolling.
By the way, "tone" is not how "troll" is defined, but it is a convenient way of down-moderating people you disagree with.
That said, it doesn't sound entirely unreasonable to me to relax and eat/read while cruising under IFR.
I hope you say that to your CFII if you ever get one and he corrects you on that idea. "Cruising under IFR" requires attention to the systems to make sure they are doing what they should be doing, and that you aren't deviating from course, just like "cruising under VFR".
The fact that there's an autopilot doesn't remove the necessity of monitoring, it just adds to it. It lessens the need for constant control inputs, which is why it is an overall plus.
I doubt ANY pilot would be as inattentive as you seem to think.
We just had an alleged pilot tell us that he had no problem reading a book while flying on autopilot. You just said you didn't think it was unreasonable to be reading while "cruising under IFR". Yes, I think that some pilots will be that inattentive.
"Closer to other aircraft?" You do realize that there can be just 500' between aircraft on an airway, I hope.
Maybe they don't teach that to glider pilots, I don't know. If you, the IFR guy, are just 300' low, and the VFR guy is just 200' high, the separation goes to 0'. (You are assigned 7000. The VFR guy is supposed to be at 6500. Do the math.) Consider that you could be spot-on perfect 7000' and he may be climbing from 6000 to 8000, he's going to pass right through your 7000' altitude. He's nose high and can't see you. Your head is in a book because you're "cruising under IFR" and you aren't bothering to look.
If the VFR guy is a glider with no electrical system and no mode S, ATC is going to have a hard time issuing an accurate traffic advisory, and may miss the fact that the glider is there altogether. Do you really want to trust that ATC can see all other aircraft around you and can get you the traffic advisory in time? That's what you just told me you didn't think was unreasonable.
But then, I'm just a troll. You fly the way you want to and I'm sure it will all work out ok. (A friend of mine used to point out on a regular basis that pilots who say "I'm sure it will work out ok" are usually doing something unsafe and probably stupid.)
From down thread, maybe it means something to you:
Yes, I understood every word. A well trained ATP can catch an autopilot mistake and correct it in 25-25 seconds. (In the movie "Sully" it was a major plot point that the pilots required 30 seconds just to recognize the bird strike before they began to react to it. This may or may not be "real life", but I doubt it is far from the truth.) That requires him to be monitoring the status of the autopilot to catch the error and be ready to correct it. This reinforces my point: there has to be an attentive pilot ready to take over. (That 400' deviation will not be readily apparent unless the pilot is actually doing an instrument scan to detect it -- part of being attentive and not "reading a book".)
Further reinforcing my point is that a Tesla driver has on the order of 1-3 seconds to correct an error that may be no more than 4 feet, and depends on much less robust sensing. This requires the driver to be monitoring the vehicle and autopilot function and be ready to correct it.
That's what I've said from the beginning. That's my point.
Exactly because the problem is so much vastly harder, then the failure rate of the mechanism will be much higher.
Sigh. I didn't say anything different. But is the problem "vastly harder" for an aircraft than an automobile? The sensors for determining heading, roll, etc in an aircraft are stable and can be redundant to reduce failures in those. The data they produce is also pretty simple. The control mechanisms are more complex, but then again they are old technology.
The sensors for a vehicle "autopilot" are relatively new (lidar, cameras, etc) and require robust image and data processing to get the appropriate information.
What IS different is not the hazard but the risk. (Or vice versa, I can never remember which is which. One is "how often this happens combined with how bad the result will be", the other is "what the failure is.") When an aircraft autopilot fails there is often (not always) time to mitigate the damage. When an automobile autopilot fails, there is often (not always) very little time. "Very little time" combined with "not as often" still results in "must have attentive driver ready to take over". In standard risk management terms, something that is rare but always fatal has a high risk associated with it, while something that happens a lot but is only sometimes fatal can still be high risk.
These two problems are not at all alike. Their failure modes are not at all alike.
For heaven's sake, I do wish people would stop making things up. I didn't say the problems or the failure modes were alike. I said, pretty clearly I thought, that BOTH systems require an attentive pilot ready to take over, and that is why calling the Tesla thing an autopilot is still correct. Autopilots require human supervision always. Always. That means that "autopilot" is not an inappropriate name.
Tesla is getting people killed because their stupid marketing is lulling people into a false sense of security.
That may be. Lots of people equate "modern" with "secure" and get lulled into that mistake. It doesn't matter what you call it. "My car can stay in its lane all by itself. I guess I don't have to keep an eye out to make sure it is working right, huh?" Notice I didn't use the word "autopilot" there at all.
Regular people think "autopilot" means the car can safely drive itself.
As I've already pointed out, a reasonable person should be able to figure out that if a device he is relying on can result in his own death and the death of everyone in the vehicle, then that device requires supervision to handle things when it fails. I.e., paying attention to what it is doing and be ready to step in. Christ, even simple traffic lights fall into that category. People get killed because they assume that traffic lights are perfect (and AUTOMATED, too) and don't bother looking for oncoming traffic that isn't going to stop.
One death over a poorly named feature is one death too many to keep the stupid name.
The name describes the feature. Pilots have been killed because they forgot the George isn't perfect and nobody whines that calling it an aircraft autopilot implies it can fly the airplane without fail. Lawsuits are common when things fail in an airplane, and yet not a single one of those that I can identify has been based on the fact that it was called an "autopilot" and it didn't work perfectly.
Tesla should be ashamed of themselves for not renaming the feature so far.
I doubt there is any name that Tesla could use that someone would not claim implies perfect safety and abilities on the part of the vehicle. Just wait until we have "autonomous vehicles" and they don't turn out to be perfectly safe, either. What do we call them if not "auto"nomous?
This all misses the point: the vast majority of people are not pilots,
Learning to operate something with an "autopilot" requires non-pilots to learn that "autopilot" is not "perfection" or "needs no monitoring", just like learning to drive a car with an "autopilot" requires the same.
If you have a function on a car that can kill you when it fails, it really does seem logical that you realize you need to pay attention to what it is doing and be ready to take control to avoid death. At least, it seams logical to me.
every thing they deal with that is 'auto' in their lives meaning not having to worry about it.
Most things that are "auto" in real life don't have life-threatening failure modes like an autopilot in a car obviously does. "Automatic volume control" on a radio doesn't kill people when it breaks, for example. "Automatic frequency control" ditto. Automatic drying mode on a clothes dryer ditto, but you should still have a smoke alarm nearby just in case the failure mode is "keep heating forever".
but what matters is the lay man's perspective
This kind of attitude is what got us the cell phone frequency blank regions in consumer radio receivers, which has lasted long past any protections it gives to cell phone users. It is also why you don't go to the hospital lab to get an NMR scan, you get an MRI. "Lay perspective" on technical things is often wrong.
Allow me to rephrase: the problem of implementing a safe autopilot for a plane is VASTLY, HUGELY easier than implementing a safe autopilot for a car.
That may be. It has nothing to do with the fact that the naming of "autopilot" in the Tesla is quite correct based on historical naming of "autopilot" in aircraft. BOTH require an active pilot/driver paying attention to deal with failures of the system when they happen.
I am not debating how hard one is compared to the other, so telling me I missed that point is moot.
Most importantly, in a plane if the autopilot can simply maintain altitude and direction, then the vast majority of the time that will be safe for a long period of time.
Yes, I think we've all figured out that if the autopilot is working then the "pilot" doesn't have much to do -- other than monitor the autopilot to make sure it is still working. The issue is not "working autopilot", it is "pilot has to pay attention".
You are comparing apples to Godzilla and saying "yeah, they sound about the same."
I didn't say that. I said the name wasn't inappropriate in the Tesla. They both require monitoring and a readiness to step in when it fails. Claiming that "autopilot" implies perfection and no need for the "pilot" to be attentive (and thus the name is wrong because the Tesla does require that) is just ridiculous.
ATP CFI here. Boeing and Airbus jets can take off and land without operator intervention.
I didn't say they couldn't. I said that even aircraft autopilots require a real pilot paying attention and ready to take over if George fails -- which is exactly what the Tesla autopilot requires.
What an autopilot when properly functioning can do does not absolve the pilot of his responsibilities of being the pilot in command. He cannot decide to "read a book" while on the CAT III approach to auto-land because he thinks George will take care of everything for him. As an ATP CFI you should know that and correct any ATP student you deal with who shows such disregard for the safety of his passengers, and if you can't correct that behavior I would hope you would never sign him off to fly with the examiner.
Aircraft fly in three dimensions in mostly empty space
It is a fact that somewhere below every aircraft in flight is either rock or water, both of which can be fatal when hit in the wrong way. Further, that rock sometimes sticks up into that "mostly empty space", and is just as fatal when run into at full speed. A failed autopilot will not prevent those fatal interactions, it takes an attentive pilot detecting the failure and taking control.
AND have air traffic control monitoring and directing traffic away from each other.
Many of them do, many more of them do not. If you are VFR and not taking advantage of flight following (or the controller is too busy to provide that optional service), you have no ATC monitoring, and traffic advisories even with flight following are on an "as workload permits" basis for that controller. Even on an IFR flight plan I've had times when the controller issued a traffic advisory to me after the traffic was no longer a factor.
In fact, while on an IFR flight plan, I've called ATC to tell them the altitude that the VFR aircraft passing under or over me was at -- before I got the traffic advisory telling me he was there.
There are small portions of the US where controlled airspace requires contact with ATC prior to entry for all aircraft, but this is not all airspace and lots of people fly outside such areas.
I take it you've never flown as a pilot before. No really, it's ok because most people aren't pilots:P
I am a PPSEL, IA (Private Pilot Single Engine Land, Instrument Airplane) with thirty years of flying. Don't stick your fucking tongue out at me, asshole.
Aircraft autopilots are designed with a LOT of different ways of being disabled because disabling them very quickly can save your life. These methods range from a simple "disable" button on the yoke to the "off" button on the autopilot itself to actually pulling the circuit breaker for the autopilot. (Many circuit breakers in an aircraft are flush when enabled so you can't accidentally pull them -- the autopilot breaker is not one of them.)
Aircraft autopilots can decide to go full up elevator (causing a stall/spin crash-into-the-ground), full down (dive into the ground), or make other, uncommanded control changes.
Knowing how to disable "George" (and not just turn it off) is a checklist item for any aircraft that has one. It WILL be part of any aircraft familiarization training.
Further, autopilot failure can occur in other than catastrophic ways. I've seen NTSB reports of autopilots that disconnect for some reason (for example, when the pilot accidentally pushes on the yoke and the altitude-hold function turns off) and the aircraft stops being "autopiloted". The pilot doesn't notice and bad things happen -- which is why it shows up in an NTSB report.
Sorry to break this news to you, but an attentive pilot is a requirement even when using the most advanced autopilots. It's not just your life, it's the lives of any passengers who happen to be with you. I'm sorry that I have to be the one to educate you on this, because it shows a complete failure of every CFI or CFII you've ever flown with.
My fellow pilots in other planes are several hundred meters if not kilometers away.
The dangers from autopilot failure have nothing to do with other aircraft, and it is disingenuous to pretend that it does. Yes, the chance of hitting someone else because of an autopilot failure are very slim, but that's not what happens when they do fail.
Heck I read a book sometimes.
I pray for your passengers. I hope they are smart enough not to ride with you. Not only are you abandoning your supervisory role with regard to the autopilot function, you are abandoning your legal responsibility to "see and avoid". Even though you think all those other aircraft will stay "several hundred meters" away from you, the NTSB reports are filled with examples of when that didn't happen. You can't see the aircraft on an intersecting course with you when your head is in a book, and your autopilot isn't going to save you.
A few seconds of inattentive in a passenger car (with or without Tesla autopilit) will at best cause a crash or worse kill you.
How ridiculous can you get? A few seconds of inattentiveness in a car will, at best, have no effect at all. People do it all the time without running into anything or anyone. They look at their GPS or radio, they look at a passenger, they adjust the air conditioning, or any number of other distractions. We're not talking about "a few seconds", though. You can be attentive and ready to take over while still having "a few second" distractions.
The fact that you choose to fly recklessly by reading a book instead of being a pilot doesn't mean that the autopilot in a Tesla is misnamed. Being on "autopilot" in either a car or an airplane requires a pilot in command paying attention to the function of that autopilot and ready to take over when it fails. Not "if" it fails, because at some point it will. That's the same language real pilots use in regard to engine failures. It isn't "if the engine ever fails", it is "when it fails". It isn't "if the autopilot fails", it's "when". Responsible pilots deal with their flying that way, it's the rest of you who make the headlines and destroy airplanes.
1. Safety. Despite the alarmism in TFA, you are safer using Autopilot than driving yourself.
You might think so, but there are often unintended consequences.
It was either anti-lock brakes or all wheel drive that was supposed to decrease accident rates but actually increased them, at least for a while. It was because drivers expected them to work in situations where they weren't going to and they took greater risks because they were "safer".
I would expect that "autopilot" has the same consequence. "I've put it in autopilot mode, I can now safely text everyone about my wonderful experience while riding in a Tesla 8(@%} NO CARRIER...
If nothing else, drivers may be lulled into doing what the driver in an Allstate insurance commercial does: look down below his seat to find his buzzing cell phone. After all, "autopilot" and "automatic braking" will keep him from running into the back end of the car stopped at a red light ahead of him -- which is what happens to the Allstate driver.
Progress requires guinea pigs.
I think this is one of the few times I've seen an AV supporter admit that human beings are going to be sacrificial test animals in the search for AV safety.
I don't know why you think it is misnamed. It is named exactly the same way that aircraft autopilots are. Aircraft autopilots also require an attentive pilot ready to take over, because aircraft autopilots will happily fly the airplane into obstructions, or can fail in a large number of other ways. In fact, "can disable autopilot" is a standard pilot checklist item, and it can be done in half a dozen different ways.
Seems like the Tesla "autopilot" is named just right.
I quoted 2 differences cited in PolitiFact's article. You seem to be consistently missing this one.
I quoted and replied to that first statement. I'm sorry you didn't read those paragraphs. It was where I referred to people taking the "personality quiz"; it should have been obvious from the context what I was replying to.
Right. While ignoring the other difference I quoted,
and announcing inaccurately that the difference you were addressing was the only one.
I quoted and replied to both of your quotes in my comments. How is that ignoring either one?
The second quote was what my comment about "the only difference" referred to. Had it applied to the first quote, it would have appeared in that part of my reply. Since it appeared following the second quote, it should be clear it applied to that quote. Jesis, is that such a hard concept?
You made it pretty clear you were talking about the Cambridge Analytica leak.
The discussion as a whole is about that leak. You made comments about a specific subgroup that was involved in that leak, and then how data was used. I quoted the first and then replied to it by referring specifically to the group that participated in the "personality quiz", but you seem to want to apply those comments to everyone involved. I thought it should be pretty clear that a comment that refers to people to took part in a "personality quiz" applies only to that group of people.
Similarly, I quoted and then replied to that quote from you discussing the difference in how the data was used, making a specific statement about that difference. You again want to take that statement out of context and apply it to other parts of the discussion.
Splitting the quotes like I did should have been a sign that the comments following each applied to each individually. Had I been replying to both in the same way they would not have been split.
Ignoring the context of my replies and denying the clarification FROM THE AUTHOR is not particularly productive (or honest), and we're not getting anywhere other than you turning to ad hominem.
Since you will not accept clarification when you misinterpret what I wrote, and instead continue to try to take my comments out of context, you may continue alone. It is too tiresome trying to correct you.
Here, let me refresh the context of my statement since you seem unable to find it yourself. You wrote:
The Obama campaign used the data to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends. Cambridge Analytica targeted users and their friends directly with digital ads.
Now, let's continue...
You don't think that it's significant that in one instance the user knew they were handing over their information to a political campaign
There is not one word in your statement about users knowing who or what they were turning over. The difference you pointed out is only that Obama used volunteers to contact other people and Cambridge Analytical did it themselves. That is a difference that makes no difference. In fact, the balance falls in favor of Cambridge because they used targeted advertisements (which most people have learned how to ignore) instead of more personalized messages from alleged "friends".
THAT statement, which I quoted when I initially replied, is the context in which I made my statement about "the only difference" and it making no difference. I've told you that once already, but you seem insistent in trying to apply a statement I made in one context to everything else. Please stop.
Every Facebook user has a "public profile". And when they say "most people on Facebook", they're not just talking about the Cambridge Analytica leak. They mean most users.
That's right. "Most people on Facebook" includes the people whose data was leaked. The comment was about "public profile data", and that was the context in which I wrote about "public profile data". See how that works?
The third-party firm (Global Science Research) used a clicky personality quiz to get people to interact with the app, which then used a loophole to pull all the behind-the-scenes data of that user, and also the same data relating to all their friends
And I commented about people who take "personality quizes" elsewhere. If you don't want someone getting information about you, don't take their "personality quiz" because it will reveal data about you. Any reasonable person would understand that.
The only way to stop this is to ban data collection completely.
Sigh. I could use personal insult like you did towards me, but I'll refrain.
No such law would ever pass. Too many people find too much value in having some data collected, like the Amazon example I presented. Too many people will reject outright your claim that there is no good data collection.
The best you can do it laws regarding release of such data once it is collected. But if you cannot rely on laws banning such releases, then you cannot rely on a law banning collection at all.
Therefore, this is a pipe dream that will never happen, and the extremist position of "no data collection is the only good data collection" is just that -- extremist zealotry.
And you will find similar behavior if you send a link in an email to someone who is behind "network appliance" spam filters like Zimbra or Barracuda, or you are sending mail out through such a server. I have an unindexed link that sends me an email when anyone hits it, and every time I email a copy of that link to someone I get one or two nearly immediate hits. One is from my outgoing email server, one will be from their incoming email server. I think gmail also does this, but I don't recall.
They could be caching a copy of it, they could be leeching a copy of it,
The standard internet meme at this point is to say that if it appears anywhere on the web it belongs to the public.
2. Please hold your elected officials accountable for not prosecuting Obama et al. next time. It was (and is) a republican controlled fed.
For eight years following Obama's election, a Democrat was the head of the executive branch of the US government, within which is the Department of Justice.
That wasn't the only difference. It wasn't even the only difference I quoted.
Sigh. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO USES THAT YOU LISTED IN THAT ONE QUOTE is a difference that makes no difference. I was referring to that specific statement of yours that I quoted, which is why I quoted it. Context, please. There is no significant difference between Obama's campaign using volunteers to contact people and Cambridge Analytical contacting them directly.
Most of the harvested accounts were not "public profiles".
From Facebook's blog post, "Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we've seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way. "
Now all that 87 million people think it is no big deal if they are trolled and emotionally manipulated for their vote.
How many people are still outraged by the Daisy Ad run by Lyndon Johnson against Goldwater? I remember that ad, and I remember that not a lot of Democrats were upset by the "emotional manipulation" that got their candidate elected.
Expect people coming out of wood work blaming Hillary for being dumb out of touch politician and a master criminal at the same time.
Are you trying to say that someone cannot be both out of touch with their campaign and a criminal at the same time? How naive.
Ah ok. If people would only listen to Stallman we would be better off. The only good data collection is none at all.
Stallman is a nut.
For example, Amazon collects data on what I've bought from them, tied to my login. This makes it easy to re-buy something I want more of. It makes it easier to get a refund/return. It allows Amazon to notify me if there is a problem with an order. It allows Amazon to lie to me about when that order has been delivered.
Is that bad data collection? Of course not.
The BAD thing would be if Amazon sold that information to someone else, or had poor data security and the information leaked.
But to claim that the only good data collection is no data collection is just unfettered zealotry.
But in Obamaâ(TM)s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign. In the Cambridge Analytica case, users only knew were taking a personality quiz for academic purposes.
If you don't want someone seeing your public profile data, don't take their "personality quiz", because even at best that "quiz" for "academic purposes" has the intent of finding things out about you that you may not want to expose. In a similar vein, don't take the MMP (Minnesota Multi-phasic mumble something) if you don't want the results known by anyone.
And for God's sake, if you don't want someone to see your public profile data, don't give your name to them so they can go look it up easily.
The Obama campaign used the data to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends. Cambridge Analytica targeted users and their friends directly with digital ads.
The only difference is a difference that isn't a difference. Obama had volunteers contact people. Cambridge Analytical did it directly.
If you don't want anyone to know your public profile data, don't post it to a place where they call it a "public profile". What would a reasonable person expect would happen with a "public profile" but be viewable, and thus harvestable, by the PUBLIC?
since they obviously cancel any orders that do go through, which makes the users of the services trust them less.
Not only that, but during the time that the property is rented it is not available to rent to someone who is actually seeking a place to stay. Further, if there are credit charges for deposits that need to be refunded, the company loses any transaction fees. These are even more direct material harm to the companies.
If the company tracks interest in a property and bases its rental rates on that interest, then fake rentals may appear to be fake demand, with an associated increase in the rental rate -- which will drive real customers away, or have them paying artificially inflated rates. These are material harm to both the company and the consumer.
I suppose the other thing that is bothering me is that the private property that is being regulated is mine.
Don't be silly.
Going to a web site and going to a store have something different. I'm using my device at home to access the web site.
You are using your device to access someone elses property. The violation of authorized use is not what you are doing with your property, it is what you are doing to someone elses.
The owners of the web site are saying that they have the right to dictate how I use my keyboard and mouse at my house.
Knock it off. You know that isn't what is happening. They don't care how you use your keyboard or mouse, they are responding to your use of their property.
Whether I two-finger type in my userid "clovis" or use a vbscript sendkey to send the same string, the http/TCP/IP packet that arrives at the web site is indistinguishable.
That's nice but irrelevant.
How can the owners of the web site declare it to be a crime to depending upon the method I use to create the packet on my PC?
They aren't, and you know that. The fact that you are creating thousands of packets containing fake names over a few hours pretending to want to rent an apartment on airbnb and sending them to the airbnb servers is the relevant bit.
How can the owner of a web site say that I cannot take a screen shot on my own PC or photograph the screen?
My God, are you never going to stop with this nonsense? They can't. And you know they aren't trying.
It's like the owner of the mall tries to refuse access to people who ride the bus instead of walking there.
No. It has nothing to do with how you get there, only with what you do when you do. It doesn't matter if you take a bus or walk to the mall if you set up a booth trying to sell gizmos without permission and get trespassed. Nobody cares how you got there. The issue is that you are not authorized to use the mall property for that activity.
And like I told you already, the mall owner is the one who gets to decide what you are authorized and not authorized to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Time went by and we've basically seen every social platform turn into a walled garden.
There is a reason we cannot have nice things. It's called "spam".
People were happy when an open API allowed their friends to communicate easily. People got unhappy when not-friends took advantage of the same API. "Why are you allowing this to happen?", they asked. "Stop it." "It" was "fake news" or "spam" or "hate speech" or whatever.
So now they're acting to stop it. Welcome to the walled garden.
Cruise control only takes away one task - you still have to be paying enough attention to your steering
You also need to be paying attention to your speed since cruise control is not perfect. My Subaru's cruise control will fail when I'm going downhill. I set it at 70 on the level, it will usually maintain that going up the hill, but when we're coming down the hill the speed will slowly creep up. I've seen it hit 80 or 85.
I know it is the cruise control failing because if I turn it off after reaching 80 the car starts to slow down again.
when ALL tasks are taken over, as in the case of Autopilot.
If Tesla is marketing Autopilot in such a way, then they truly are wrong.
You can't even play the "Tesla is technically correct, the best kind of correct" card and say the plebes should just get over it, as nothing "pilots" a car. It doesn't resemble the methods of airplane autopilot enough to say they are bringing over the technology either.
I didn't say either thing. I was pretty specific in what the similarity was. It does the same kind of thing and has the same specific limitation on driver/pilot attentiveness.
but your bellicose tone is causing the downvotes.
Inconvenient Truths, I think it was called. Just not sugar coated. I think a "bellicose tone", as you put it, is appropriate when someone suggests doing something so absolutely stupid and dangerous as "reading while piloting". Pointing that out is "trolling", to some. Maybe it's a sign that the term "autopilot" is wrong for any such device because non-pilots think "auto" means that pilots can hand control over to it and not keep it under constant supervision. Anyone who suggests otherwise must be trolling.
By the way, "tone" is not how "troll" is defined, but it is a convenient way of down-moderating people you disagree with.
That said, it doesn't sound entirely unreasonable to me to relax and eat/read while cruising under IFR.
I hope you say that to your CFII if you ever get one and he corrects you on that idea. "Cruising under IFR" requires attention to the systems to make sure they are doing what they should be doing, and that you aren't deviating from course, just like "cruising under VFR".
The fact that there's an autopilot doesn't remove the necessity of monitoring, it just adds to it. It lessens the need for constant control inputs, which is why it is an overall plus.
I doubt ANY pilot would be as inattentive as you seem to think.
We just had an alleged pilot tell us that he had no problem reading a book while flying on autopilot. You just said you didn't think it was unreasonable to be reading while "cruising under IFR". Yes, I think that some pilots will be that inattentive.
"Closer to other aircraft?" You do realize that there can be just 500' between aircraft on an airway, I hope. Maybe they don't teach that to glider pilots, I don't know. If you, the IFR guy, are just 300' low, and the VFR guy is just 200' high, the separation goes to 0'. (You are assigned 7000. The VFR guy is supposed to be at 6500. Do the math.) Consider that you could be spot-on perfect 7000' and he may be climbing from 6000 to 8000, he's going to pass right through your 7000' altitude. He's nose high and can't see you. Your head is in a book because you're "cruising under IFR" and you aren't bothering to look.
If the VFR guy is a glider with no electrical system and no mode S, ATC is going to have a hard time issuing an accurate traffic advisory, and may miss the fact that the glider is there altogether. Do you really want to trust that ATC can see all other aircraft around you and can get you the traffic advisory in time? That's what you just told me you didn't think was unreasonable.
But then, I'm just a troll. You fly the way you want to and I'm sure it will all work out ok. (A friend of mine used to point out on a regular basis that pilots who say "I'm sure it will work out ok" are usually doing something unsafe and probably stupid.)
From down thread, maybe it means something to you:
Yes, I understood every word. A well trained ATP can catch an autopilot mistake and correct it in 25-25 seconds. (In the movie "Sully" it was a major plot point that the pilots required 30 seconds just to recognize the bird strike before they began to react to it. This may or may not be "real life", but I doubt it is far from the truth.) That requires him to be monitoring the status of the autopilot to catch the error and be ready to correct it. This reinforces my point: there has to be an attentive pilot ready to take over. (That 400' deviation will not be readily apparent unless the pilot is actually doing an instrument scan to detect it -- part of being attentive and not "reading a book".)
Further reinforcing my point is that a Tesla driver has on the order of 1-3 seconds to correct an error that may be no more than 4 feet, and depends on much less robust sensing. This requires the driver to be monitoring the vehicle and autopilot function and be ready to correct it.
That's what I've said from the beginning. That's my point.
Exactly because the problem is so much vastly harder, then the failure rate of the mechanism will be much higher.
Sigh. I didn't say anything different. But is the problem "vastly harder" for an aircraft than an automobile? The sensors for determining heading, roll, etc in an aircraft are stable and can be redundant to reduce failures in those. The data they produce is also pretty simple. The control mechanisms are more complex, but then again they are old technology.
The sensors for a vehicle "autopilot" are relatively new (lidar, cameras, etc) and require robust image and data processing to get the appropriate information.
What IS different is not the hazard but the risk. (Or vice versa, I can never remember which is which. One is "how often this happens combined with how bad the result will be", the other is "what the failure is.") When an aircraft autopilot fails there is often (not always) time to mitigate the damage. When an automobile autopilot fails, there is often (not always) very little time. "Very little time" combined with "not as often" still results in "must have attentive driver ready to take over". In standard risk management terms, something that is rare but always fatal has a high risk associated with it, while something that happens a lot but is only sometimes fatal can still be high risk.
These two problems are not at all alike. Their failure modes are not at all alike.
For heaven's sake, I do wish people would stop making things up. I didn't say the problems or the failure modes were alike. I said, pretty clearly I thought, that BOTH systems require an attentive pilot ready to take over, and that is why calling the Tesla thing an autopilot is still correct. Autopilots require human supervision always. Always. That means that "autopilot" is not an inappropriate name.
Tesla is getting people killed because their stupid marketing is lulling people into a false sense of security.
That may be. Lots of people equate "modern" with "secure" and get lulled into that mistake. It doesn't matter what you call it. "My car can stay in its lane all by itself. I guess I don't have to keep an eye out to make sure it is working right, huh?" Notice I didn't use the word "autopilot" there at all.
Regular people think "autopilot" means the car can safely drive itself.
As I've already pointed out, a reasonable person should be able to figure out that if a device he is relying on can result in his own death and the death of everyone in the vehicle, then that device requires supervision to handle things when it fails. I.e., paying attention to what it is doing and be ready to step in. Christ, even simple traffic lights fall into that category. People get killed because they assume that traffic lights are perfect (and AUTOMATED, too) and don't bother looking for oncoming traffic that isn't going to stop.
One death over a poorly named feature is one death too many to keep the stupid name.
The name describes the feature. Pilots have been killed because they forgot the George isn't perfect and nobody whines that calling it an aircraft autopilot implies it can fly the airplane without fail. Lawsuits are common when things fail in an airplane, and yet not a single one of those that I can identify has been based on the fact that it was called an "autopilot" and it didn't work perfectly.
Tesla should be ashamed of themselves for not renaming the feature so far.
I doubt there is any name that Tesla could use that someone would not claim implies perfect safety and abilities on the part of the vehicle. Just wait until we have "autonomous vehicles" and they don't turn out to be perfectly safe, either. What do we call them if not "auto"nomous?
This all misses the point: the vast majority of people are not pilots,
Learning to operate something with an "autopilot" requires non-pilots to learn that "autopilot" is not "perfection" or "needs no monitoring", just like learning to drive a car with an "autopilot" requires the same.
If you have a function on a car that can kill you when it fails, it really does seem logical that you realize you need to pay attention to what it is doing and be ready to take control to avoid death. At least, it seams logical to me.
every thing they deal with that is 'auto' in their lives meaning not having to worry about it.
Most things that are "auto" in real life don't have life-threatening failure modes like an autopilot in a car obviously does. "Automatic volume control" on a radio doesn't kill people when it breaks, for example. "Automatic frequency control" ditto. Automatic drying mode on a clothes dryer ditto, but you should still have a smoke alarm nearby just in case the failure mode is "keep heating forever".
but what matters is the lay man's perspective
This kind of attitude is what got us the cell phone frequency blank regions in consumer radio receivers, which has lasted long past any protections it gives to cell phone users. It is also why you don't go to the hospital lab to get an NMR scan, you get an MRI. "Lay perspective" on technical things is often wrong.
Allow me to rephrase: the problem of implementing a safe autopilot for a plane is VASTLY, HUGELY easier than implementing a safe autopilot for a car.
That may be. It has nothing to do with the fact that the naming of "autopilot" in the Tesla is quite correct based on historical naming of "autopilot" in aircraft. BOTH require an active pilot/driver paying attention to deal with failures of the system when they happen.
I am not debating how hard one is compared to the other, so telling me I missed that point is moot.
Most importantly, in a plane if the autopilot can simply maintain altitude and direction, then the vast majority of the time that will be safe for a long period of time.
Yes, I think we've all figured out that if the autopilot is working then the "pilot" doesn't have much to do -- other than monitor the autopilot to make sure it is still working. The issue is not "working autopilot", it is "pilot has to pay attention".
You are comparing apples to Godzilla and saying "yeah, they sound about the same."
I didn't say that. I said the name wasn't inappropriate in the Tesla. They both require monitoring and a readiness to step in when it fails. Claiming that "autopilot" implies perfection and no need for the "pilot" to be attentive (and thus the name is wrong because the Tesla does require that) is just ridiculous.
ATP CFI here. Boeing and Airbus jets can take off and land without operator intervention.
I didn't say they couldn't. I said that even aircraft autopilots require a real pilot paying attention and ready to take over if George fails -- which is exactly what the Tesla autopilot requires.
What an autopilot when properly functioning can do does not absolve the pilot of his responsibilities of being the pilot in command. He cannot decide to "read a book" while on the CAT III approach to auto-land because he thinks George will take care of everything for him. As an ATP CFI you should know that and correct any ATP student you deal with who shows such disregard for the safety of his passengers, and if you can't correct that behavior I would hope you would never sign him off to fly with the examiner.
Aircraft fly in three dimensions in mostly empty space
It is a fact that somewhere below every aircraft in flight is either rock or water, both of which can be fatal when hit in the wrong way. Further, that rock sometimes sticks up into that "mostly empty space", and is just as fatal when run into at full speed. A failed autopilot will not prevent those fatal interactions, it takes an attentive pilot detecting the failure and taking control.
AND have air traffic control monitoring and directing traffic away from each other.
Many of them do, many more of them do not. If you are VFR and not taking advantage of flight following (or the controller is too busy to provide that optional service), you have no ATC monitoring, and traffic advisories even with flight following are on an "as workload permits" basis for that controller. Even on an IFR flight plan I've had times when the controller issued a traffic advisory to me after the traffic was no longer a factor. In fact, while on an IFR flight plan, I've called ATC to tell them the altitude that the VFR aircraft passing under or over me was at -- before I got the traffic advisory telling me he was there.
There are small portions of the US where controlled airspace requires contact with ATC prior to entry for all aircraft, but this is not all airspace and lots of people fly outside such areas.
I take it you've never flown as a pilot before. No really, it's ok because most people aren't pilots :P
I am a PPSEL, IA (Private Pilot Single Engine Land, Instrument Airplane) with thirty years of flying. Don't stick your fucking tongue out at me, asshole.
Aircraft autopilots are designed with a LOT of different ways of being disabled because disabling them very quickly can save your life. These methods range from a simple "disable" button on the yoke to the "off" button on the autopilot itself to actually pulling the circuit breaker for the autopilot. (Many circuit breakers in an aircraft are flush when enabled so you can't accidentally pull them -- the autopilot breaker is not one of them.)
Aircraft autopilots can decide to go full up elevator (causing a stall/spin crash-into-the-ground), full down (dive into the ground), or make other, uncommanded control changes. Knowing how to disable "George" (and not just turn it off) is a checklist item for any aircraft that has one. It WILL be part of any aircraft familiarization training.
Further, autopilot failure can occur in other than catastrophic ways. I've seen NTSB reports of autopilots that disconnect for some reason (for example, when the pilot accidentally pushes on the yoke and the altitude-hold function turns off) and the aircraft stops being "autopiloted". The pilot doesn't notice and bad things happen -- which is why it shows up in an NTSB report.
Sorry to break this news to you, but an attentive pilot is a requirement even when using the most advanced autopilots. It's not just your life, it's the lives of any passengers who happen to be with you. I'm sorry that I have to be the one to educate you on this, because it shows a complete failure of every CFI or CFII you've ever flown with.
My fellow pilots in other planes are several hundred meters if not kilometers away.
The dangers from autopilot failure have nothing to do with other aircraft, and it is disingenuous to pretend that it does. Yes, the chance of hitting someone else because of an autopilot failure are very slim, but that's not what happens when they do fail.
Heck I read a book sometimes.
I pray for your passengers. I hope they are smart enough not to ride with you. Not only are you abandoning your supervisory role with regard to the autopilot function, you are abandoning your legal responsibility to "see and avoid". Even though you think all those other aircraft will stay "several hundred meters" away from you, the NTSB reports are filled with examples of when that didn't happen. You can't see the aircraft on an intersecting course with you when your head is in a book, and your autopilot isn't going to save you.
A few seconds of inattentive in a passenger car (with or without Tesla autopilit) will at best cause a crash or worse kill you.
How ridiculous can you get? A few seconds of inattentiveness in a car will, at best, have no effect at all. People do it all the time without running into anything or anyone. They look at their GPS or radio, they look at a passenger, they adjust the air conditioning, or any number of other distractions. We're not talking about "a few seconds", though. You can be attentive and ready to take over while still having "a few second" distractions.
The fact that you choose to fly recklessly by reading a book instead of being a pilot doesn't mean that the autopilot in a Tesla is misnamed. Being on "autopilot" in either a car or an airplane requires a pilot in command paying attention to the function of that autopilot and ready to take over when it fails. Not "if" it fails, because at some point it will. That's the same language real pilots use in regard to engine failures. It isn't "if the engine ever fails", it is "when it fails". It isn't "if the autopilot fails", it's "when". Responsible pilots deal with their flying that way, it's the rest of you who make the headlines and destroy airplanes.
1. Safety. Despite the alarmism in TFA, you are safer using Autopilot than driving yourself.
You might think so, but there are often unintended consequences.
It was either anti-lock brakes or all wheel drive that was supposed to decrease accident rates but actually increased them, at least for a while. It was because drivers expected them to work in situations where they weren't going to and they took greater risks because they were "safer".
I would expect that "autopilot" has the same consequence. "I've put it in autopilot mode, I can now safely text everyone about my wonderful experience while riding in a Tesla 8(@%} NO CARRIER...
If nothing else, drivers may be lulled into doing what the driver in an Allstate insurance commercial does: look down below his seat to find his buzzing cell phone. After all, "autopilot" and "automatic braking" will keep him from running into the back end of the car stopped at a red light ahead of him -- which is what happens to the Allstate driver.
Progress requires guinea pigs.
I think this is one of the few times I've seen an AV supporter admit that human beings are going to be sacrificial test animals in the search for AV safety.
Different cars have different breaking distances,
My Subaru has gone more than 100,000 miles without any significant breaking.
The intentionally misnamed "autopilot"
I don't know why you think it is misnamed. It is named exactly the same way that aircraft autopilots are. Aircraft autopilots also require an attentive pilot ready to take over, because aircraft autopilots will happily fly the airplane into obstructions, or can fail in a large number of other ways. In fact, "can disable autopilot" is a standard pilot checklist item, and it can be done in half a dozen different ways.
Seems like the Tesla "autopilot" is named just right.
I quoted 2 differences cited in PolitiFact's article. You seem to be consistently missing this one.
I quoted and replied to that first statement. I'm sorry you didn't read those paragraphs. It was where I referred to people taking the "personality quiz"; it should have been obvious from the context what I was replying to.
Right. While ignoring the other difference I quoted, and announcing inaccurately that the difference you were addressing was the only one.
I quoted and replied to both of your quotes in my comments. How is that ignoring either one?
The second quote was what my comment about "the only difference" referred to. Had it applied to the first quote, it would have appeared in that part of my reply. Since it appeared following the second quote, it should be clear it applied to that quote. Jesis, is that such a hard concept?
You made it pretty clear you were talking about the Cambridge Analytica leak.
The discussion as a whole is about that leak. You made comments about a specific subgroup that was involved in that leak, and then how data was used. I quoted the first and then replied to it by referring specifically to the group that participated in the "personality quiz", but you seem to want to apply those comments to everyone involved. I thought it should be pretty clear that a comment that refers to people to took part in a "personality quiz" applies only to that group of people.
Similarly, I quoted and then replied to that quote from you discussing the difference in how the data was used, making a specific statement about that difference. You again want to take that statement out of context and apply it to other parts of the discussion.
Splitting the quotes like I did should have been a sign that the comments following each applied to each individually. Had I been replying to both in the same way they would not have been split. Ignoring the context of my replies and denying the clarification FROM THE AUTHOR is not particularly productive (or honest), and we're not getting anywhere other than you turning to ad hominem.
Since you will not accept clarification when you misinterpret what I wrote, and instead continue to try to take my comments out of context, you may continue alone. It is too tiresome trying to correct you.
Now, let's continue...
You don't think that it's significant that in one instance the user knew they were handing over their information to a political campaign
There is not one word in your statement about users knowing who or what they were turning over. The difference you pointed out is only that Obama used volunteers to contact other people and Cambridge Analytical did it themselves. That is a difference that makes no difference. In fact, the balance falls in favor of Cambridge because they used targeted advertisements (which most people have learned how to ignore) instead of more personalized messages from alleged "friends".
THAT statement, which I quoted when I initially replied, is the context in which I made my statement about "the only difference" and it making no difference. I've told you that once already, but you seem insistent in trying to apply a statement I made in one context to everything else. Please stop.
Every Facebook user has a "public profile". And when they say "most people on Facebook", they're not just talking about the Cambridge Analytica leak. They mean most users.
That's right. "Most people on Facebook" includes the people whose data was leaked. The comment was about "public profile data", and that was the context in which I wrote about "public profile data". See how that works?
The third-party firm (Global Science Research) used a clicky personality quiz to get people to interact with the app, which then used a loophole to pull all the behind-the-scenes data of that user, and also the same data relating to all their friends
And I commented about people who take "personality quizes" elsewhere. If you don't want someone getting information about you, don't take their "personality quiz" because it will reveal data about you. Any reasonable person would understand that.
The only way to stop this is to ban data collection completely.
Sigh. I could use personal insult like you did towards me, but I'll refrain.
No such law would ever pass. Too many people find too much value in having some data collected, like the Amazon example I presented. Too many people will reject outright your claim that there is no good data collection.
The best you can do it laws regarding release of such data once it is collected. But if you cannot rely on laws banning such releases, then you cannot rely on a law banning collection at all.
Therefore, this is a pipe dream that will never happen, and the extremist position of "no data collection is the only good data collection" is just that -- extremist zealotry.
This is actually a part of FB's preview function
And you will find similar behavior if you send a link in an email to someone who is behind "network appliance" spam filters like Zimbra or Barracuda, or you are sending mail out through such a server. I have an unindexed link that sends me an email when anyone hits it, and every time I email a copy of that link to someone I get one or two nearly immediate hits. One is from my outgoing email server, one will be from their incoming email server. I think gmail also does this, but I don't recall.
They could be caching a copy of it, they could be leeching a copy of it,
The standard internet meme at this point is to say that if it appears anywhere on the web it belongs to the public.
2. Please hold your elected officials accountable for not prosecuting Obama et al. next time. It was (and is) a republican controlled fed.
For eight years following Obama's election, a Democrat was the head of the executive branch of the US government, within which is the Department of Justice.
That wasn't the only difference. It wasn't even the only difference I quoted.
Sigh. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO USES THAT YOU LISTED IN THAT ONE QUOTE is a difference that makes no difference. I was referring to that specific statement of yours that I quoted, which is why I quoted it. Context, please. There is no significant difference between Obama's campaign using volunteers to contact people and Cambridge Analytical contacting them directly.
Most of the harvested accounts were not "public profiles".
From Facebook's blog post, "Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we've seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way. "
Now all that 87 million people think it is no big deal if they are trolled and emotionally manipulated for their vote.
How many people are still outraged by the Daisy Ad run by Lyndon Johnson against Goldwater? I remember that ad, and I remember that not a lot of Democrats were upset by the "emotional manipulation" that got their candidate elected.
Expect people coming out of wood work blaming Hillary for being dumb out of touch politician and a master criminal at the same time.
Are you trying to say that someone cannot be both out of touch with their campaign and a criminal at the same time? How naive.
Ah ok. If people would only listen to Stallman we would be better off. The only good data collection is none at all.
Stallman is a nut.
For example, Amazon collects data on what I've bought from them, tied to my login. This makes it easy to re-buy something I want more of. It makes it easier to get a refund/return. It allows Amazon to notify me if there is a problem with an order. It allows Amazon to lie to me about when that order has been delivered.
Is that bad data collection? Of course not.
The BAD thing would be if Amazon sold that information to someone else, or had poor data security and the information leaked.
But to claim that the only good data collection is no data collection is just unfettered zealotry.
But in Obamaâ(TM)s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign. In the Cambridge Analytica case, users only knew were taking a personality quiz for academic purposes.
If you don't want someone seeing your public profile data, don't take their "personality quiz", because even at best that "quiz" for "academic purposes" has the intent of finding things out about you that you may not want to expose. In a similar vein, don't take the MMP (Minnesota Multi-phasic mumble something) if you don't want the results known by anyone.
And for God's sake, if you don't want someone to see your public profile data, don't give your name to them so they can go look it up easily.
The Obama campaign used the data to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends. Cambridge Analytica targeted users and their friends directly with digital ads.
The only difference is a difference that isn't a difference. Obama had volunteers contact people. Cambridge Analytical did it directly.
If you don't want anyone to know your public profile data, don't post it to a place where they call it a "public profile". What would a reasonable person expect would happen with a "public profile" but be viewable, and thus harvestable, by the PUBLIC?
since they obviously cancel any orders that do go through, which makes the users of the services trust them less.
Not only that, but during the time that the property is rented it is not available to rent to someone who is actually seeking a place to stay. Further, if there are credit charges for deposits that need to be refunded, the company loses any transaction fees. These are even more direct material harm to the companies.
If the company tracks interest in a property and bases its rental rates on that interest, then fake rentals may appear to be fake demand, with an associated increase in the rental rate -- which will drive real customers away, or have them paying artificially inflated rates. These are material harm to both the company and the consumer.
I suppose the other thing that is bothering me is that the private property that is being regulated is mine.
Don't be silly.
Going to a web site and going to a store have something different. I'm using my device at home to access the web site.
You are using your device to access someone elses property. The violation of authorized use is not what you are doing with your property, it is what you are doing to someone elses.
The owners of the web site are saying that they have the right to dictate how I use my keyboard and mouse at my house.
Knock it off. You know that isn't what is happening. They don't care how you use your keyboard or mouse, they are responding to your use of their property.
Whether I two-finger type in my userid "clovis" or use a vbscript sendkey to send the same string, the http/TCP/IP packet that arrives at the web site is indistinguishable.
That's nice but irrelevant.
How can the owners of the web site declare it to be a crime to depending upon the method I use to create the packet on my PC?
They aren't, and you know that. The fact that you are creating thousands of packets containing fake names over a few hours pretending to want to rent an apartment on airbnb and sending them to the airbnb servers is the relevant bit.
How can the owner of a web site say that I cannot take a screen shot on my own PC or photograph the screen?
My God, are you never going to stop with this nonsense? They can't. And you know they aren't trying.
It's like the owner of the mall tries to refuse access to people who ride the bus instead of walking there.
No. It has nothing to do with how you get there, only with what you do when you do. It doesn't matter if you take a bus or walk to the mall if you set up a booth trying to sell gizmos without permission and get trespassed. Nobody cares how you got there. The issue is that you are not authorized to use the mall property for that activity.
And like I told you already, the mall owner is the one who gets to decide what you are authorized and not authorized to do.